The ever increasing
population burden has devoured all
the benefits that India gained due
to rapid Industrial and agricultural
development after the independence.
The population growth has been the
prime concern of the planners. It
is no surprising that the concern
for having smaller families has been
equally, if not more, widespread among
the scientific community as well as
the decision makers of the nation.
Even though the educated and otherwise
population of the nation has been
convinced of the need of having smaller
children, there were hardly safer
and acceptable method to restrict
population growth. Safer antifertility
drugs were the main motto of all research
on antifertility projects.

CDRI, being one of the leading research
labs of the country had obviously put
enough attention and intellectual resources
to develop safer and acceptable antifertility
drugs. One of the main focus was to have
an alternative to steroidal pills available
in the market which were not free from
side effects.

The need for a safer alternative to Progestogen
- Estrogen combination pills has been
felt ever since the sixties. Clearer understanding
of the role of estrogen-progesterone balance
in the development of fertilized ovum
and the priming of the uterus for implantation
served as the basis for developing an
agent that would prevent pregnancy by
interfering with implantation but without
disturbing the hypothalamus-pituitary-ovarian
axis. Researchers the world over have
been designing and synthesising non-steroidal
estrogen antagonists that would act by
disturbing the delicate balance between
estrogen and progesterone at the uterine
level without interfering with their synthesis
or blood levels. This task was sucessfully
completed by CDRI when the first non-steroidal
once a week pil, centchroman was devloped
by CDRI taht reached the general public
by the end of the 1980's.
Centchroman is a novel non-steroidal agent
unrelated to any conventionally used contraceptive.
This is the only anti-implantation agent
approved for clinical use in the world.
It offers a unique combination of weak
estrogenic and potent antiestrogenic properties.
Due to this subtle mix of estrogenic and
antiestorgenic action it inhibits the
fertilized ovum from nidation and thus
prevents pregnancy, but at the same time
it does not appear to disturb the other
estrogen effects.

Use of Centchroman as a contraceptive
has been extensively evaluated in more
than 2000 women of the reproductive age
groups who wanted to space their children.
Intensive monitoring by clinical examination,
haematology and biochemical tests as well
as laparascopy and ultrasonographic examinations
of ovaries and uterus have shown the drug
to be quite safe. Centchroman does not
cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness and
break through bleeding and has no adverse
effect on lipid profile and platelet function
as is seen with steroidal contraceptives.
Babies born to use failure cases have
shown normal milestones. The contraceptive
effect is readily reversible and subsequent
pregnancy and its outcome is normal. It
scores over steroidal contraceptive pills
because it does not disturb the endocrine
system and the normal ovulatory cycle
is maintained.

Centchroman
has been licensed to two companies in
India.



Hindustan
Latex Ltd., Trivandrum, which is marketing
it under the trade name, Saheli.



Torrent Pharmaceuticals
Ltd, Ahmedabad, which marketed it under
the trade name, Centron.

Centchroman
as an antibreast cancer agent-
Centchroman has also been found effective
as an anti-breast cancer agent. Multicentric
trials in stage III/IV breast cancer patients,
who were not responsive to other modalities
of therapy, were found to respond to Centchroman
with an overall responsive rate of about
56%. The data is being compiled for seeking
marketing permission from DCG(I).